TechNewsWorld : Archives

TECH TREK
EC Mulls Potential US Threat to Europeans' Privacy

Tuesday - June 11, 2013

The European Commission is concerned that U.S. data collection practices such as PRISM may pose a threat to Europeans' privacy rights. Commission Vice President Viviane Reding, who is in charge of justice, plans to raise the issue at an EU-U.S. meeting later this week in Dublin. That announcement comes after last week's revelation that the National Security Agency has been monitoring U.S. citizens' data via the headline-grabbing PRISM program. [More...]

Sprint Launches Spunky $99 Vital Smartphone

Tuesday - June 11, 2013

Sprint this week released the $99 ZTE Vital, a high mid-range Android smartphone that could rock the market. The device, which has been pegged as a competitor to Samsung's highly regarded Galaxy S4, has a host of power-packed features and has already divided analysts. "The price is the key," said Richard Karpinski, a senior analyst at the Yankee Group. [More...]

LIVE FROM E3
Microsoft Targets Hard-Core Gamers with 13 New Xbox One Titles

Monday - June 10, 2013

Against the backdrop of the Electronic Entertainment Expo video game conference and show in Los Angeles this week, Microsoft unveiled 13 new games for its upcoming Xbox One video game console. "It was a lot to process," said video game industry consultant N'Gai Croal of the company's nearly 90-minute presentation. "It is still early, but this looks like a strong line-up." [More...]

iRobot Remotely Goes Where You Want to Go, Sees What You Want to See

Monday - June 10, 2013

iRobot has announced the Ava 500, a robot that lets users conduct video conferences while on the move. The device was developed and will be marketed in close alliance with Cisco. It consists of a Cisco personal telepresence system -- essentially a two-way videoconference screen with associated technology -- mounted on a smart pedestal from iRobot that stands at about 5 feet 5 inches. [More...]

TECH TREK
Google Now First in Line to Acquire Waze

Monday - June 10, 2013

Google appears to have supplanted Facebook -- which had supplanted Apple -- as the likely candidate to acquire Israeli start-up Waze. Google is reportedly prepared to pony up $1.3 billion for the company. Last month, reports surfaced that Facebook was working on a $1 billion deal for Waze. And that was only after Apple, in late 2012, offered $500 million for the company. [More...]

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY
Cybersecurity Tops the Agenda in U.S.-China Weekend Talks

Monday - June 10, 2013

Among the issues on the agenda for the talks over the weekend between China's President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Obama were cybersecurity and attacks on U.S. targets by hackers based in China. "The technical means to validate true reduction in cyberoffense are not very good since the advantage belongs overwhelmingly to the attacker in cyberspace," noted FireEye CTO Ashar Aziz. [More...]

OPINION
Microsoft's Uncanny Transformation

Monday - June 10, 2013

For much of the last decade, Microsoft has set an example more of doing things wrong than right, but at TechEd last week, Microsoft suddenly was showcasing a number of really smart decisions and best practices. It almost felt like an event from a different company -- or the company I remember from the 1990s, before it got arrogant; when it was younger, more vital and a bit more fun. [More...]

Latest Wrinkle in Data Security: Time Cloaking

Saturday - June 8, 2013

If a message isn't read, does it exist? Bishop Berkeley would say no, and a temporal cloak that creates a gap in time during the transmission of a message might prove him right. Researchers at Purdue University have created such a cloak: It can hide about 46 percent of the time required to transmit data over a fiber optic cable, making half the transmission invisible. [More...]

Tech Industry Could Pay Stiff Price for PRISM

Friday - June 7, 2013

Technology firms in the United States might be impacted adversely by the National Security Agency's controversial PRISM program. Classified documents about the program leaked to The Washington Post and The Guardian indicate that major U.S. high-tech companies provide it data. This data is the major source of raw intelligence for the NSA's analytical reports, according to the agency. [More...]

TECH TREK
Early Salvos Launched Ahead of Cybersecurity Talks

Friday - June 7, 2013

President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will soon meet to talk cybersecurity, but plenty of people on either side are talking already. A day after China's claim that it has data proving U.S. hackers have been attacking the Middle Kingdom, U.S. officials say Chinese hackers orchestrated "a massive cyberespionage operation against the 2008 presidential campaigns" of Obama and McCain. [More...]

It's a Smart Smart Smart Smartphone World

Friday - June 7, 2013

More than half of the adults in the United States now own a smartphone, constituting a new milestone in the history of the device, according to the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Specifically, smartphone adoption has grown to 56 percent of American adults. That's the largest percentage since Pew began tracking smartphone adoption two years ago. [More...]

Nuclear Power, Part 1: A Smaller, Safer Future

Friday - June 7, 2013

Keeping the lights on in the global industrial world -- never an easy task -- never seems to get any easier. Nuclear energy, which provides nearly 20 percent of our nation's electricity, is at a crossroads. Can nuclear reactors -- the torrid, pulsating, heat-generating hearts of nuclear power plants -- ever be safe enough? Thanks to several new technologies, the outlook is promising. [More...]

Microsoft, FBI Flatten Monster Botnet

Friday - June 7, 2013

A coalition comprising Microsoft, the FBI, and financial-industry and tech firms has taken out more than 1,400 botnets that used the Citadel Trojan to steal victims' online banking information and information about their identities. Microsoft filed a civil suit last week against 82 alleged botnet operators and cut communications between the botnets and millions of infected PCs they controlled. [More...]

TECH TREK
China Jumps the Gun on Cybersecurity Talks

Thursday - June 6, 2013

This coming weekend's cybersecurity talks may have already started. China's state-run newspaper ran an article claiming that the government has "mountains of data" proving it has been the victim cyberespionage at the hands of the United States. The report precedes the upcoming landmark meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and President Obama; cybersecurity is expected to be a key talking point. [More...]

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